House and Senate can’t agree on budget process

House and Senate negotiators have reached an impasse over how to move forward on their respective budget proposals — making any chance of a compromise budget deal to slash the deficit less likely.

The prospects that Budget Committee Chairs Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) could reach a deal to hold a budget conference committee are dimming as each side is pushing for different things before a conference can even begin.

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House Republicans want a “framework” crafted first, which would include a broad-stroke agreement on taxes, spending and the deficit. Senate Democrats want to head straight to a conference committee and are pushing back against “closed-door negotiations.”

“A framework is a set of goals we want to work toward,” a GOP aide said. “How much in spending cuts/deficit reduction/plans for tax reform/entitlement changes, etc. Those overall numbers need to be defined first so we’re all moving in the same direction.”

In the past two weeks, Democrats have begun publicly attacking Republicans for their handling of the budget process. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) tried to force the issue, publicly calling on Republicans to create a conference committee and trying to move on the floor to appoint conferees.

Both the House and the Senate passed their budgets in March before the Easter recess — the Senate for the first time in four years at the House GOP’s prodding — including a provision that would have stopped their paychecks without a budget.

The Democrats’ message is simple: After years of demanding that the Senate pass a budget through regular order, Republicans are now refusing to go to conference and follow that process they were previously clamoring for.

While Democrats know attacks about “regular order” and “conference” aren’t going to resonate much outside the Beltway, they see the fight as a way of attacking Republicans in the 2014 midterms for being obstructionist and refusing to do the people’s work.

“I’ve urged Paul to move forward on a conference. Their response has been they want to establish a framework,” House Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told POLITICO. “We don’t want to do it that way; we want to go through a regular order. We don’t want to do negotiations behind closed doors.”

While Democrats in both chambers crank up the criticism, Republican response has been paltry. For the most part, they’ve struck back only by saying sometimes going to conference takes a long time. House Republicans also argue that Reid is engaging in a “stunt.”

“The problem with Senate Democrats right now is that they don’t even agree that our goal is balancing the budget — ever,” a House GOP aide said. “They just want more tax hikes, more borrowing, more spending and more debt.”

But the House GOP and Ryan refuse to publicly explain what they want from closed-door negotiations, or the benefits to voters of holding off on the budget conference process after insisting that Senate Democrats pass a budget. They won’t even answer the claims that they’re being obstructionist.

“Our budgets are miles apart,” a Republican aide said. “We cut spending, they increase spending. We reform the Tax Code, they have a massive tax increase. We reform Medicare, they essentially endorse the status quo. So currently, we’re not moving in the same direction. If the gap is going to be bridged, we have to define common goals.”

Politically, Democrats think going to conference is a winning move, particularly on the issue of taxes and entitlement programs.